Cubeb
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Plants
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| Piper cubeba L. |
Cubeb (Piper cubeba), or tailed pepper, is a plant in genus Piper, cultivated for its fruit and essential oil. It is mostly grown in Java and Sumatra, hence sometimes called Java pepper. The fruits are gathered before they are ripe, and carefully dried. Commercial cubebs consist of the dried berries, similar in appearance to black pepper, but with stalks attached — the "tails" in "tailed pepper". The dried pericarp is grayish-brown, or black and wrinkled. The seed, when present, is hard, white and oily. The odour of cubebs is described as agreeable and aromatic. The taste, pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent.
Cubeb came to Europe via India through the trade with the Arabs. The name cubeb comes from Arabic kababah (كبابة) which is of unknown origin, by way of Old French quibibes. Cubeb is mentioned in alchemical writings by its Arabic name. In his Theatrum Botanicum, John Parkinson tells that the king of Portugal prohibited the sale of cubeb in order to promote the black pepper (Piper nigrum) around 1640. It experienced a brief resurgence in 19th century Europe for medicinal uses, but has practically vanished from the European market since. It continues to be used as a flavoring agent for gins and cigarettes in the West, and as a seasoning for food in Indonesia and Africa.
History
In the 4th century BC, Theophrastus mentioned komakon, joining it with cinnamon and cassia as an ingredient in aromatic confections. Guillaume Budé and Claudius Salmasius have identified komakon with cubeb, probably due to the resemblance which the word bears to the Javanese name of cubeb, kumukus. This is seen as a curious evidence of Greek trade with Java in a time earlier than that of Theophrastus. It is unlikely Greeks acquired them from somewhere else, since Javanese growers protected their monopoly of the trade by sterilizing the berries by scalding, ensuring that the vines were unable to be cultivated elsewhere.
In the Tang Dynasty, cubeb was brought to China from Srivijaya. In India the spice came to be called kabab chini, that is, "Chinese cubeb," possibly because the Chinese had a hand in its trade, but more likely because it was an important item in the trade with China. In China this pepper was called both vilenga, and vidanga, the cognate Sanskrit word. Li Hsun thought it grew on the same tree as black pepper. The physicians of Tang administered it to restore appetite, to cure "demon vapors", to darken the hair, and to perfume the body. However, there is no evidence showing that cubeb was used as a condiment in China.
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, compiled in the 9th century, mentions cubeb as a remedy for infertility, showing it was already used by Arabs for medicinal purpose. Cubeb was introduced to Arabic cuisine around 10th century. The Travels of Marco Polo, written in late 13th century, describes Java as a producer of cubeb, along with other valuable spices. In 14th century, cubeb was imported into Europe from the Grain Coast, under the name of pepper, by merchants of Rouen and Lippe. A 14th century moral tale exemplifying gluttony by the Franciscan writer Francesc Eiximenis describes the eating habits of a worldly cleric who consumes a bizarre concoction of egg yolks with cinnamon and cubeb after his baths, probably intended as an aphrodisiac.
Cubeb was thought to be repulsive to demons in Europe as it was in China. Ludovico Maria Sinistrari, a Catholic priest who wrote about methods of exorcism in the late 17th century, includes cubeb as an ingredient in making an incense that wards off incubus. Even today, his formula of the incense is quoted by neopagan authors, some of whom also claim that cubeb can be used in love sachets and spells.
After the prohibition of sale, culinary use of cubeb dramatically decreased in Europe and only its medicinal application continued to the 19th century. In the early 20th century, cubeb was regularly shipped from Indonesia to Europe and the United States. The trade gradually diminished to an average of 135 ton annually, and practically ceased after 1940. Now most cubeb produced is consumed in the country of origin.
Chemistry
The dried cubeb berries contain essential oil consisting monoterpenes ( sabinene 50%, α-thujene, carene, 1,4-cineol and 1,8-cineol) and sesquiterpenes ( caryophyllene, copaene, α- and β-cubebene, δ- cadinene, cubebol, germacrene).
About 15% of a volatile oil is obtained by distilling cubebs with water. After rectification with water, or on keeping, this deposits rhombic crystals of camphor of cubebs (C15H60). Cubebene, the liquid portion, has the formula C15H24. Cubebin (C10H10O3) is a crystalline substance existing in cubebs, discovered by Eugène Soubeiran and Capitaine in 1839. It may be prepared from cubebene, or from the pulp left after the distillation of the oil. The drug, along with gum, fatty oils, and malates of magnesium and calcium, contains also about 1% of cubebic acid, and about 6% of a resin. The dose of the fruit is 30 to 60 grains, and the British Pharmacopoeia contains a tincture with a dose of 4 to 1 dram.
Use
Medicinal
In India, Sanskrit texts included cubeb in various remedies. Charaka and Sushruta prescribed a paste of cubebs as a mouthwash, or dried cubebs internally for oral and dental diseases, loss of voice, halitosis, fevers, cough. Unani physicians use a paste of the cubeb berries externally on male and female genitals to intensify sexual pleasure during coitus. Due to this attributed property cubebs were called "Habb-ul-Uruus".
In traditional Chinese medicine cubeb is used for its alleged warming property. In Tibetan medicine, cubeb (ka ko la in Tibetan) is one of bzang po drug, six fine herbs beneficial to specific organs in the body. Cubeb is assigned for the spleen.
The Arabian physicians in the Middle Ages were usually versed in alchemy, and cubeb was used, under the name kababa, when preparing the water of al butm. The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, mentions cubeb as a main ingredient in making an aphrodisiac remedy for infertility:
He took two ounces of Chinese cubebs, one ounce of fat extract of Ionian hemp, one ounce of fresh cloves, one ounce of red cinnamon from Sarandib, ten drachms of white Malabar cardamoms, five of Indian ginger, five of white pepper, five of pimento from the isles, one ounce of the berries of Indian star-anise, and half an ounce of mountain thyme. Then he mixed cunningly, after having pounded and sieved them; he added pure honey until the whole became a thick paste; then he mingled five grains of musk and an ounce of pounded fish roe with the rest. Finally he added a little concentrated rose-water and put all in the bowel.
The mixture, called "seed-thickener", is given to Shams-al-Din, a wealthy merchant who had no child, with the instruction that he must eat the paste two hours before having sexual intercourse with his wife. According to the story, the merchant did get the child he desired after following the instruction. Other Arab authors wrote that cubebs rendered the breath fragrant, cured affections of the bladder, and that eating cubebs "enhances the delight of coitus".
In 1654, Nicholas Culpeper wrote in the London Dispensatorie that cubebs were "hot and dry in the third degree... (snip) they cleanse the head of flegm and strenghthen the brain, they heat the stomach and provoke lust". A later edition in 1826 informed the reader that "the Arabs call them Quabebe, and Quabebe Chine: they grow plentifully in Java, they stir up venery. (snip) ...and are very profitable for cold griefs of the womb".
The modern employment of cubeb in England as a drug dates from 1815. There were various preparations of cubebs including oleum cubebae (oil of cubebs), tinctures, fluid extracts, oleo-resin compounds and vapors, which was used for throat complaints. A small percentage of cubebs were commonly included in lozenges designed for use in bronchitis, in which the antiseptic and expectoral properties of the drug are useful. But the most important therapeutic application of this drug was in gonorrhea, where its antiseptic action was of much value. William Wyatt Squire wrote in 1908 that cubebs "act specifically on genito-urinary mucous membrane. (They are) given in all stages of gonorrhea" . As compared with copaiba in this connection cubebs has the advantages of being less disagreeable to take and somewhat less likely to disturb the digestive apparatus in prolonged administration.
The volatile oil, oleum cubebae, was the form in which cubeb is most commonly used as a drug, the dose being 5 to 20 minims, which may be suspended in mucilage or given after meals in a wafer. The drug had the typical actions of a volatile oil, but exerted some of them in an exceptional degree — thus it was liable to cause a cutaneous erythema in the course of its excretion by the skin, had a marked diuretic action, and was a fairly efficient disinfectant of the urinary passages. Its administration caused the appearance in the urine of a salt of cubebic acid which was precipitated by heat or nitric acid, and was therefore liable to be mistaken for albumin, when these two most common tests for the occurrence of albuminuria were applied.
The National Botanic Pharmacopoeia printed in 1921 tells that cubebs were "an excellent remedy for flour albus or whites."
Culinary
In Europe, cubeb was one of the valuable spices during the Middle Age. It was ground as a seasoning for meat, or used in sauces. A medieval recipe includes cubeb in making "sauce sarcenes", which consists of almond milk and several spices. Also as an aromatic confectionary, cubeb was often candied and eaten whole. Candied cubeb is mentioned in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, set in 1940s:
Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum centre. It is unspeakably awful. Slothrop's head begins to reel with camphor fumes, his eyes are running, his tongue's a hopeless holocaust. Cubeb? He used to smoke that stuff. "Poisoned..." he is able to croak.
"Show a little backbone," advises Mrs. Quoad.
While the same novelist's Against the Day, set, in part, in the 1880s, relates the smoking of cubeb early in the novel between the characters Darby Suckling and Chick Counterfly.
Cubeb reached Africa through Arabs. In Moroccan cuisine, cubeb is used in savory dishes and in pastries like markouts, little diamonds of semolina with honey and dates. Cubeb is sometimes included in the list of ingredients for the famed spice mixture Ras el hanout. In West Africa, cubeb turns up in dishes like stews of Benin, where its use is so frequent it is referred to as piment pays, pepper of the country. In Indonesian cuisine, especially in Indonesian gulés (curries), cubeb is used. Ocet Kubebowy, the vinegar infused with cubeb, cumin and garlic was used for meat marinades in Poland during the 14th century.
Cigarettes and spirits
Cubebs were frequently used in the form of cigarettes for asthma, chronic pharyngitis and hay fever. Edgar Rice Burroughs, being fond of smoking cubeb cigarettes, humorously stated that if he had not smoked so many cubebs, there might never have been Tarzan. "Marshall's Prepared Cubeb Cigarettes" was a popular brand with enough sales to still be made during World War Two. Sometimes Marijuana users claimed that smoking Marijuana is no more harmful than smoking cubeb.
Cubeb oil was included in the list of ingredients found in cigarettes, published by Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch of NC Department of Health and Human Services.
Bombay Sapphire gin is flavored with botanicals including cubebs and grains of paradise. The brand was launched in 1987, but its maker claims that it is based on a secret recipe dating to 1761. Pertsovka, a dark brown Russian pepper vodka with a burning taste, is prepared from infusion of cubeb and capsicum peppers.
Other
Cubeb is sometimes used to adulterate the essential oil of Patchouli, which requires caution for Patchouli users. Cubeb berries are used in love-drawing magic spells by practitioners of hoodoo, an African-American form of folk magic.
In 2000, the well-known Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido patented formulas of anti-aging products made from several herbs including cubebs.
In 2001, the Switzerland-based company Firmenich patented cubebol, a compound found in cubeb oil, as a cooling and refreshing agent. The patent describes application of cubebol as a refreshing agent in various products, ranging from chewing gum to sorbet, drink, toothpaste, and gelatin-based confectionery.